Drawing Maps
by Vii Zee
Summary: A journey of self discovery for one Santana Lopez


"_You're my heart, my __**compass**__. As long as you're near, I know that I am on the right path."_

-0-

They say there are signs to tell if a person is gay or not from their childhood. Mr and Mrs Lopez never really paid any attention to the signs when it came to Santana. They didn't even know there _were_ signs. All they knew was that they had seven children to look after and they didn't have time to look for tell-tale signs of latent homosexuality or…whatever.

So when Santana finally started to consider that there was more to sex than penis-plus-vagina, she had nobody to help her or guide her.

-0-

**The Straight Road…**

She was fifteen when the thought first popped into her head, and riding the bus to the mall to meet Quinn. She was looking aimlessly out of the window before turning her head to look at the new arrival on the bus, a girl with flowing brown hair and large brown eyes. She seemed to have an air of allure about her, something Santana had never felt about another female, and she found herself transfixed with her, her eyes travelling up and down the girl's body as she walked by, her mouth slightly agape.

The girl wasn't a real looker, but there was just something about her…something special…

Santana breathed in once, twice, deeply, trying to calm her racing mind as she felt a flush creep onto the back of her neck as she watched the girl (from a safe distance) stare out the window and bite at her bottom lip absent mindedly. Santana found her eyes tracing the outline of the girl's lips with her eyes, staring at the contours of her face and almost wishing she could run her fingers over the ivory skin on her arms.

She had no idea where these thoughts came from, but at the time, she didn't shake them away. And for the first time ever, she felt that the word 'gay' could be used to describe her.

-0-

**The Bend in the Road…**

A few weeks later, Carlos took her with him to the book store on the pretence of buying her the new Princess Diaries novel. While she was scanning the shelves for it, he was flipping through magazine after magazine, slowly staring at certain pages, eyes wide and ogling. She was curious to look, even though she knew what she would find. Nevertheless, she crept up behind him, intending on simply giving him a fright, and instead was shocked into silence by the images.

Naked bodies. Scores of them all on display. And not a single man in sight, they were all women. All of them with perfect legs and hips and breasts, with the pouty lips and the flowing hair. They were all perfect in every way.

She frowned and mentally slapped herself for staring too long.

"They're not real," she whispered at her brother, who jumped slightly before putting it back on the shelf and shrugging.

"I know, but it can't hurt to think they are for like five minutes."

-0-

**The Corner in the Hillside…**

The next time Carlos went to the book store, she made sure she watched exactly where he put the plastic bag, and grabbed his newly purchased magazine the moment his back was turned. She rushed up to her room with the stolen goods and stared down at the glossy pages as she locked the door behind her.

It wouldn't hurt to look…would it?

She felt so guilty as she threw herself onto the bed and started to flip through the pages one by one, slowly, turning them carefully and trying not to leave any evidence of her glances in it. At first she couldn't bring herself to look at anything but their faces, at the way they seemed so flawlessly disgusting. But as the pages turned, her eyes started to wander, and soon she was tracing their bodies with her fingers, licking her lips occasionally and letting her mind slowly run away with the thoughts.

It wasn't the first time she'd looked at another woman's body. She always did it, for comparison purposes. But for the first time she was doing it and feeling a soft growl at the pit of her stomach, a knot start to rapidly tighten and loosen. She felt her cheeks grow red as she recognized the feeling.

Lust.

-0-

**The First in a Series of Circles…**

Needless to say, she suppressed it. Santana wasn't ready to deal with it, at all, the fact that she might be attracted to the same sex. So she threw herself into a pool of cis-gendered males, sleeping with one self-proclaimed man after the next, trying to prove it to herself that her lesbianism wasn't an option. First it was some loser senior who grunted too loudly as he thrust above her. Next came a junior who was obsessed with blowjobs, and after that she decided she was better off sticking to the ones her age.

So she found Puck.

He was perfect. He didn't want anything elaborate, he didn't care about her personally. He was just somebody to have sex with, and it was absolutely perfect.

Except for one lingering detail: he was a boy.

-0-

**The Never Ending Maze of Mistakes…**

The first time with Puck was…well…a disaster, to say the least.

He came over to her house, his hands buried deep in his pockets, a sly grin on his face. Her large house was empty, and the first thing he did as soon as she opened the door was ask "Are we alone?"

She gave one, quick nod. He grabbed her in his arms, pulled her to him and lifted her up, kissing at her face viciously. Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around his waist, and soon they were all over the place. He had her against the wall, on the carpet in the living room, on the sofa, the kitchen table, and even in the middle of the stairs when they (or rather, he) couldn't wait to get to her bedroom. They even had the chance on her parents' bed before they tried out hers, wearing out the springs and deafening the walls.

When he was done, panting with exhaustion and his hair ruffled completely, he zipped up his pants, looked into her mirror and started combing his Mohawk back into place. As he did, he spied her in the back of the mirror, lying on the bed and panting heavily, a hand over her eyes and her legs wobbling from fatigue. He smirked, said his goodbye, and was out of the door.

As soon as the door to her bedroom closed, she let out the sob she'd been holding in since he first pushed himself inside her.

-0-

**The Loss of a Map in Dangerous Territory…**

Over the months she realized that she couldn't keep denying to herself that she was, in fact, gay. The countless men she slept with day in day out were simply there to relieve her of any sexual frustrations (a girl needed her kicks somehow), but they meant nothing. She couldn't help but want it to be a woman every time she kissed another man. But she kept doing it, making it into a habit, and she kept going back to Puck.

Every time his fingers roughly pushed away her clothes, she would imagine them to be soft, slender ones gently pulling at fabric. Whenever he kissed at her neck, lips rough and coarse, she pictured a woman gently peppering her skin with light pecks. Whenever he thrust his hand beneath the safety of her jeans button, she closed her eyes and hoped this time he'd be a little bit gentler…

Every time, Puck disappointed.

And every time, Santana cried.

-0-

**The Brief Escape from One Maze…**

It wasn't until she was sixteen that she finally had her first encounter with a woman. For her, it had been a long time coming, something she had been hoping for for ages. The woman she had been with, however, saw her as just another body, and she didn't mind one bit.

She was at a party, one of Puck's famous ones. He had invited all the cheerleaders and footballer players, and he had invited her with the intention of having a little bit of fun. For some reason though, she wasn't adequate enough tonight and she found herself tossed to the side as he got attention from some sort of blonde bimbo. Quinn and Brittany weren't at the party that night, which sort of sucked, and she was left alone, leaning against a wall with a red solo cup, frowning heavily.

Suddenly, she felt a hand brush up against her arm, and she turned expectantly, hoping it was somebody who could elevate her boredom. She got so much more than she bargained for.

Standing before her was the brunette reincarnation of beauty, a girl who simply took her breath away. Santana sucked in the breath from her teeth and tried to compose herself quickly, ready to answer anything the girl threw at her. She smiled at her and leaned forward, bringing her lips near Santana's ear.

"Bored?"

Santana nodded. The girl smirked.

"You're not too interested in guys, are you?"

Santana could almost laugh. Whatever gaydar this girl had, she had to get it too. She shrugged and the girl extended her hand, and Santana took it.

"My name is Noelle, remember it."

"Why?" Santana deadpanned, and Noelle looked her right in the eyes, stopping any of her brain functions in their tracks. She leaned closer, and Santana could smell the sweat and booze on this girl, but she found the scent positively arousing.

"You'll be screaming it later."

-0-

**...And into Another One…**

Noelle didn't disappoint.

She drove Santana to her house, which was empty that night, and Santana heard her say something about her being a senior. She followed her into the house, and as soon as the door was closed, Noelle stood in front of her in the semi-darkness, shedding her jacket.

"So, ever been with a girl before?"

Santana made to answer, but Noelle quickly shushed her with a finger to her lips. "Don't lie to me, I'll know you are."

Astounded at the confidence oozing out of this woman, Santana whispered, "No."

Noelle laughed and put her hands on Santana's shoulders, slowly helping Santana remove her jacket, her face coming ever closer. Soon, their lips were connected, and Santana found herself practically melting. She grabbed onto the other girl's waist roughly, pulling her to her. Noelle pushed her against the wall clawing at her top and jeans, quickly unbuttoning and unzipping anything that had to be unbuttoned and unzipped, and Santana found herself stripped down to her underwear in seconds. Noelle quickly removed her clothes to a similar state of undress, and dragged Santana to the living room, where she proceeded to give Santana the experience of a lifetime.

-0-

**More Circles to Maneuver Through…**

Waking up the next day in her own bed was a struggle, but she remembered most of what had happened. She remembered Noelle slowly kissing a path down her body, giving her reasons to pant and squirm and moan, untensing her body and marring her skin with scratches from needy hands. She remembered Noelle giving her a lift back home after it was all done, and telling her that she should forget they ever met.

Santana wasn't sure how that could ever happen, but she told her she would try. And Noelle had smiled at her.

"Take care of yourself, kid."

-0-

**Stumbling Upon a Footpath…**

Noelle faded by time in her memory, because with that one night by moonlight on that couch came a new realization (that women were way better than men) and with that realization came the dawning of an important fact into her mind.

Brittany was gorgeous.

And Santana didn't mean the romanticized 'gorgeous' she read so much about in novels, she meant purely, utterly, drop-dead, breath-taking gorgeous. The kind that made her want to stare at Brittany forever in total awe.

When this realization dawned on her she also came to realize that yes, she was in fact very much in love with Brittany.

What scared her wasn't this, but rather how she accepted it without a mental struggle of any kind.

-0-

**Finding the Road Again…**

Luckily for Santana, Brittany was an open person. Not only did she actually make the first move with Santana when she claimed she was 'bored' while they were studying French, but she was actually the one who kept going back to Santana, venting her sexual frustration on her, claiming that it was simply for fun, but Santana always hoped that it was just a little bit more, that she was as in love with Santana as Santana was with Brittany.

It became a regular occurrence, the two of them sleeping together, acting like nothing ever happened. And it was always Santana who left Brittany's side wishing that they could have actually talked about it afterwards. Sure she always told Brittany that there were no feelings, that talking about things made feelings surface, that 'without feelings it's better'…

But everybody always told Santana she was a good liar. A good manipulator.

And poor girl, she always hoped that love would eventually find its way to her.

-0-

For years, Santana Lopez drew maps. She drew circles and squares across her life, trying to figure it out. The first fifteen years of her life was her thinking that she was as normal as everybody expected her to be. She was a straight line. And then suddenly came the twist in the road, the bend in the hillside that caused her to re-evaluate everything she knew about herself. Here she was, realizing that everything she'd always thought about herself had been a lie.

The bend in the road changed her life. The map changed completely.

She spent years going around in the circles until she was finally brave enough to break out of the maze and confess, finally get the courage to do what she had wanted to do for ages. And finally the bend in the road joined the straight path again, and she finally found it again.

She had spent forever drawing a map, and now it was complete. And as long as she had Brittany she knew that she wouldn't be straying off it anytime soon.

-0-

**Completing the Map.**

"Brittany?"

"Mm?" the blonde woman murmured as she stirred awake in bed, Santana looking over her as she lay next to her, stroking at the blonde hair lovingly, threading her fingers through it.

"You love me, right?"

"More than anything, Santana."

Santana gave a soft laugh before reaching down and kissing Brittany's temple, slipping the small, diamond trinket she held in her hand onto Brittany's left ring finger. The blonde opened one eye to stare at the ring, registering quietly as her mind roused itself.

"You didn't."

"Marry me."

It wasn't a question, it was a statement, but Brittany still yelled 'Yes!' anyways as she jumped into Santana's arms, locking her in an embrace and a heated kiss, and Santana could never have felt more at home.

-0-


End file.
